


in autumn; an anemone garden

by Bluecoeur (vietbluefic)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Betrayal, Blood and Violence, CRinktober (Critical Role), CRinktober 2020, Canon Compliant, Drabble Collection, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ficlet Collection, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Healing, Heavy Angst, Hurt Essek Thelyss, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Injury Recovery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Platonic Relationships, Rescue, Team as Destiny, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26760874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vietbluefic/pseuds/Bluecoeur
Summary: Stories in which the Mighty Nein hurt, and heal.1.Deep in the Sanatorium, Caduceus finds a drow hung in chains.2.[to be added...]
Relationships: Artagan & Jester Lavorre, Caduceus Clay & Essek Thelyss, The Mighty Nein & Essek Thelyss, The Mighty Nein & Yussa Errenis, The Mighty Nein - Relationship
Comments: 3
Kudos: 65





	in autumn; an anemone garden

**Author's Note:**

> Mashing together this year's [CRinktober](https://twitter.com/crinktober/status/1302924579900448772) and [Whumptober](https://whumptober2020.tumblr.com/post/628055505485561856/whumptober-2020-updated) prompt lists into a very self-indulgent amalgamation! I lean towards the gentler, more hurt/comfort side of "whump," but I will nonetheless do my best to be diligent with tagging and will update the summary with shorter summaries as needed.
> 
> Most of these will likely be on the shorter side, but others may become a little longer. Either way, please stay safe, and I hope that you enjoy the stories I have to offer!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Day 1 Prompt:**
>
>> _Favorite Character_ \+ waking up restrained / _shackled_ / _hanging_
> 
> I adore Caduceus Clay. Like, I truly, genuinely love him with my whole heart. I also really love his interactions with Essek, few as they are — _and_ putting the hurt on floaty hot bois. So have a prompt that satisfies my need for all three uwu.

Caduceus Clay is, on all levels, a man on a mission.

A spiritual quest, for one definition; a physical, very urgent infiltration-and-explosion mission for another.

(He hadn’t named it that. Beauregard had named it that. Caduceus sincerely hopes that they aren’t planning any actual explosions.)

The Vergessen Sanatorium reeks of disinfectant, cold and astringent, and so the grave-cleric is only glad to usher the Wildmother’s presence within. He lays a hand against the nearest wall. Lets a wave of mossy fungi ripple outwards. Spores sprout, clambering fuzzy over stone and russet brick. Satisfied, Caduceus draws back and continues on, sweeping through the halls with a _thudd—thudd_ of his staff, bringing with him a gentle wave of sickly-sweet rot.

 _Free as many as you can,_ Caleb had instructed. _They are as likely to be war prisoners as they are true patients._ Which Caduceus can tell; already he’s counted a veritable number of drow among the Sanatorium’s patients. Especially down here, in the lower basement levels. It seems the deeper into the earth the Sanatorium goes, the darker its secrets, and its practice. This floor is empty, save for one locked door. Caduceus shifts his staff to his other hand, crouches. From the satchel at his hip, he pulls out one of Veth’s vials. Then, very, very carefully, he drips a tiny stream of acid onto the metal padlock which sputters and hisses, corroding into a blackened, half-melted mess. Caduceus caps the vial and tucks it away, then bashes the lock with his beetle-shell shield. It falls to the floor in pieces. He steps around the still-hissing metal and pushes open the door.

Immediately, Caduceus winces. From inside the room (a cell, really) wafts the stench of blood. Unwashed skin and metallic torture. It’s dark. The opened door cuts orange sconce-light across the floor, which is a suspiciously dark stone. Not enough to see, though. Caduceus furrows his brow, murmurs, “Let’s get a little light going then, yeah?” and then casts _Light_ upon his staff crystal. At once, the room illuminates dim violet-pink, faceted and crystalline.

A body dangles from the ceiling. Shackled at the wrists, hung by their arms, the person is motionless and, evidently, another drow. Male, or at least male-bodied, this one. Caduceus can make out sharp ears, plum-shade skin, and matted short hair that promises to be a much brighter white under all the dried blood. In fact, there’s a _lot_ of blood. On his arms, down his legs, between his stretched-out ribs. Caduceus, well-versed with anatomy, sighs slow and pitying. Then he hears a faint noise, and the person twitches.

Oh.

“Oh,” he says aloud. “You’re alive. That’s, ah, that’s good, that’s very good.”

Except _not quite;_ because the humanoid body is not made to be hung on its own weight this way, like meat on a hook. So Caduceus steps closer — enough to see now the erratic movement of the drow’s chest, fighting for air — and stoops to loop his arm around the least wounded area of his body he can find (the thighs). The drow person ( _man?_ ) flinches from the touch, wheezes a terrified sound. Caduceus hushes him in his gentlest tone, which is very gentle indeed.

“It’s all right, I’m someone helping,” he says. Thus with his grasp firm around blood-drippy legs, he stands to his fullest height, taking the worst of the weight off those shackled arms. It’s easy; the drow’s all skin and bones, and anyways his distant ancestors _were_ giants, after all. The drow person collapses over his shoulder at once and croaks, panting rapidly. Caduceus pats the back of his knee and looses a strong healing spell. This elicits from the person a moan of pain that becomes relief halfway through. Caduceus is glad to hear it. He feels blood ooze into his fur, but that’s all right. Just residual stuff. He’s closed up anything that might’ve been still bleeding.

“Wh…” the drow person rasps. “Who…”

“Ah,” says Caduceus. “The name’s Clay, nice to meet you. I came here with a party to, mm, break things up a bit. The people here really did a number on you, huh?”

“Clay…?” the drow echoes and sounds dazed. His voice crumbles along the edges, like dried mud. A dark tongue flicks over cracked lips. “W… D’you ha… wa-ter, pl…”

“Right here.”

Caduceus unties the waterskin at his side and hands it back to the drow’s face. He feels thin hands grab onto his wrist. Hears the shackles rattle, and then the click of a too-dry throat as the prisoner drinks frantically. He lets him take four, five gulps before drawing the skin away. More later; too much at once might prove ill-advised. The person doesn’t even protest. He just slumps over Caduceus’s shoulder and breathes, reedy. At that moment, a familiar, high and scratchy voice pops into Caduceus’s ear, abuzz with the magic of _Message._

“ _Caddy! You still doing all right down there? Everyone’s okay, Fjord says we gotta get going soon, though. You can reply to this message!_ ”

“Oh, good, Veth,” Caduceus pipes up, calm. “I’m all right, just found someone who could use your help. I can’t pick the locks, and I’d rather not use your acid when they’re still on him. I’ll be waiting.”

The magic fades, taking along his response, and Caduceus feels the drow shift on his shoulder. He feels fingers tug his mossy hair, and smiles at the wall.

“Hold on just a while longer,” he says, low and reassuring. “My friends are on their way. We’ll get you patched up and back on your feet in no time.”

The drow goes still. Then in a faint voice that’s barely a voice at all, he whispers, “And what then will you do wi’ me…?”

“Well, depends, of course. Though most likely we’ll just make sure you get back home safe and sound. You’re one of the, ah, Kryn, yeah?”

Silence. He gets no response.

Caduceus dares a peek, only to find the drow had fallen unconscious against his shoulder.

Worry flares up before Caduceus dispels it with a quick checkover. Ah, he is well; just exhausted, then. Fair enough. Caduceus readjusts his grasp around the drow’s lower body, double-checks that the chains of his shackles are slack, and stands so still that he feels his body slip into a half-meditative state. It’s good. It’s nice. It’s a good thing he found this strange drow person. It’s nice that he can help.

Scurrying feet eventually interrupt the peace. Caduceus opens his eyes and turns to see Veth enter. They exchange a few words (more than a few wild gesticulations on her part) before she clambers his back like a squirrel to reach the drow’s heavy shackles. _Tink, clink, click,_ go her little metal tools, and Caduceus’s ears swivel round when the manacles resound a decisive _CLACK_ and unlock around the drow’s wrists.

“There we go,” Veth whispers. “Now let’s get _outta here!_ ”

“Let’s,” Caduceus agrees. And he follows her out of the torture room and up into the light, a drow stranger cradled carefully in his arms.

* * *

Later, Caduceus is kneeling beneath the shade of a great elm tree, contemplating the near-empty mug between his hands, when the drow jolts awake.

“Oh.” He sets his cup aside and leans closer. “Hello. How are you feeling?”

The drow — whose eyes are darting everywhere — flicks to him and immediately his pupils dilate, clear recognition. There is a very long delay before he replies.

“Fine,” he says. Then, slow and cautious: “I remember you.”

“Ah.” Caduceus is pleased. “Good, that’s good. We saved a little food for you, if you’re hungry. Nothing much — just vegetable broth, mushroom and herbs and wild carrots. Light on your stomach. Grew the mushrooms for it myself.”

The drow stares at him, which Caduceus doesn’t mind. Most people tend to do so, out of curiosity. The drow does look curious, but at the same time scared and uncertain and wary. Caduceus can understand all those, too.

“Where…are we?”

“Ahh, well.” Caduceus waves a hand and says, “Somewhere more west. Headed to the coast, actually. One of our own’s got something of a sanctuary there, a big home with her mother, lots of security and privacy. I, personally, think there’s just nowhere safer than with the people you love, so there you have it.”

“West?”

The drow tries to sit up. Caduceus lets him. He makes it to his elbows before half-collapsing back onto the bedroll. His face is pale and exhausted, but he peers at the grave-cleric in confusion, trepidation.

“I don’t understand. Are you not…taking me back to the Dynasty…?”

“We thought about it. They actually wanted to do just that,” Caduceus says with a gesture out beyond the two of them. The drow’s eyes follow his hand to where the rest of the Nein sleep, bundled into their own bedrolls nearby. Caduceus then turns towards the fire and continues speaking over his shoulder, “A lot of your people decided to head back east and so said goodbye outside that place we found you. But I told my friends it’s probably best if we keep you with us. Call it a…hmm, a gut feeling…but I thought it’d be for the best. They don’t mind. Jester in particular has been commenting that you’re very handsome. And Mister Caleb says you have mage’s hands. They’re all very curious about you.”

From the corner of one eye, he sees the drow tense and draw the blankets higher. Caduceus washes out the dregs of his tea, dumping it against the campfire stones. He then refills the mug with hot broth and turns, standing to approach their new charge. The drow stares numbly at the steaming mug for several long seconds. Then he visibly relents and reaches up to take it. Even callused and magic-scorched, his hands are long and elegant, curled loose around the mug. He has scarring all across the backs of his fingers, and now at his wrists too, from the shackles.

“Thank you,” he says. Caduceus smiles.

“My pleasure.”

“No. I mean for— for not—” The drow stumbles, however brief. “I’m— I can’t return home. To the Dynasty. They will kill me.”

“Ah.”

“The Bright Queen knows what I have done,” continues the drow in a low tone that Caduceus recognizes is one of creeping despair. “My Den will have disowned me. I am a traitor. And the Empire has— The Empire went back on their deal with me. They _lied to me._ ”

A flash of fury rears up in the drow’s eyes, darkness and silver fire. But Caduceus just regards him calmly, and so soon the fury leeches away, leaving behind naught but hollow grief. The drow turns aside, releases a shuddery breath.

“I made a gamble and lost,” he says. “And now I am no better than a dead man walking.”

Silence. Crickets chirp from the darkness. All around, wind rustles the tall, shimmering grass.

Caduceus shifts, reaches out to push the mug closer to the drow’s mouth, and asks, “What’s your name?”

The drow pauses. Taken aback, and wary again. “You first.”

“Ah, right.” Caduceus laughs, very soft. “I did give it, but then you weren’t in a condition that I’d press you to remember. It’s Clay. Well. Caduceus Clay.”

“Caduceus,” murmurs the drow. “Clay. Yes… I do recall. I’m Essek T—” Then he stumbles, as if a word on its way out had caught root in the back of his tongue. He swallows, shuts his eyes, turns away. Opens them again. “Just… Just Essek.”

“Hello, Essek,” Caduceus greets, easy. “And, ah, if I may. I’m a gravetender, so I’ve had my fair share of experience with dead men. So if it’s any comfort, I think it’d be rudely inaccurate to call yourself a walking corpse. Plenty of things await the dead. But a quiet conversation where you get to share your own name, and make a new acquaintance, that’s not one of them. And neither is a nice, hot vegetable broth, for another.”

Essek squints at him, although the expression he wears is less suspicious, more surprised and conflicted than anything else. Whatever he finds in Caduceus’s face, though, it slacks the tension in his shoulders. He drops his gaze, studying the mug in his hands. After a moment, Essek says, “I suppose that is true.”

A beat. He swallows.

“You…have been very kind to me. Thank you. For that, as well. It…means more than I can express.”

_Ah, Wildmother,_ Caduceus sends up a soft, delighted prayer, setting it free into the stars. _I like this one. If he’s meant to be with us, I think I at least wouldn’t mind. I hope the others agree._

“Again, a pleasure,” he says aloud, cheery. “Now, why don’t you try and finish as much of that as you can? I’ll make you a cup of tea in the meantime. Chamomile all right?”

* * *

It is.

The night sky fills with the quiet breaths of the slumbering, and the fragrance of newly-boiled tea.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thank you for reading!
> 
> [❁ find me here on Twitter!](https://twitter.com/vietbluecoeur)


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